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The dangerous life of Morgan Maassen

Morgan Maassen

Photographer, Filmmaker

Morgan Maassen enjoys art, music, fashion, traveling, cloudscapes, and the ocean. Given that he divides work between shooting world-class surfers and whales at sea with grand scale commercial ventures, you bet this photographer and videographer has a fairly laid-back approach to his craft. His extraordinary work takes the 25 year old from Santa Barbara, California, all over the globe on a range of projects; AHB locked him down for a minute to understand where it all started.

How did you get started in photography?

In my early teens, a surfing injury saw me out of the water for a month. I used the opportunity to borrow the family camcorder and start filming my friends surfing. This birthed a bunch of short surf/adventure videos that I made all throughout my teens. Around the age of 18, I had saved up enough money to make my own indy-travel film, and decided to buy a still camera to shoot some photos while on the road. I immediately fell in love…

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it.

You shoot a lot of your work underwater. They say that humans have only explored 10%. Does part of your interest in underwater photography tie in to the unknown element?

Absolutely. I grew up in and on the ocean. My father is a fisherman, so we have both experienced the extremities of the sea and are constantly aware of how powerful and mysterious it is. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it.

What’s your favorite place on earth?

Either the Kimberley Mountains of Australia, being underwater in Tahiti, or at home in the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara.

What’s the story with this photo?

A particularly strong winter storm blew through Santa Barbara several years ago, washing ashore several junk sailboats that homeless people were living out of off one of the beaches near the harbor. As they couldn’t afford to haul the boats out, they left them to be scuttled by the city…so we went down to check them out before they were torn apart. I thought it wold be neat to shoot a shot simulating a sinking ship with some people on it, and I used a long exposure at night to add to the obscurity of the sand to make the boat look like it was sinking at sea.

I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

I read that you own a Red Camera. I’ve always wanted to try one of those. What’s your experience with it so far?

After several years of shooting almost exclusively photos, I took a leap of faith and bought a Red Epic at the end of 2012. I used it as a kick in the butt to get back into my original passion of filmmaking, and I immediately fell in love with its incredible features and small size. I’m now using the latest Red Weapon, which is as small and light as ever. It’s unbelievable to be able to hold in my hand a camera that shoots motion picture quality. A lot of my work lately has been video; I feel myself being drawn back into that realm and I’m very gladly letting it happen.

Have you had any run ins with sharks, jellyfish, undertow or any other dangerous situations?

I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

What are some of your favorite clients you’ve worked with? Do you have a dream client?

Billabong Womens was one of my first clients, and I’m still shooting with them today. I love their team of women and the way they support them to travel the world and go on amazing adventures. I’m honored to document it and call them my friends! I also love working for massive clients, because it puts me so far out of my comfort zone. Last month I did shoots for Corona and Mercedes Benz, and it was both fascinating and exhilarating to work on such large-scale projects.

What projects are you currently working on?

I’m in post production on my Mercedes commercial, planning the next season of work and travel, opening a coffee shop/art gallery in Santa Barbara, remodelling my house, and trying to make some novelty zines to laugh at. Also, trying to surf as much as possible this month – it’s been absolutely amazing in California.

It seems to me that this is the golden age of amateur photography. How do professionals, that is those who are committed documentary, editorial, photojournalists, how do we go about telling stories that are convincing and compelling in a visually saturated environment?

National Geographic photographer Sam Abell has defined his career with patience. There is no dull section of a Sam Abell photograph, the frame is layered from back to front with compelling imagery. This can be a slow process, it can take days, weeks, or in some cases months for the right opportunity to present itself.

There were many rafts over the course of the four years and all were built with salvaged materials. The construction boom happening in NYC in the mid-2000s provided a lot of scrap material that we pulled from dumpsters.

I love the unexpected, uncontrollable moments that just happen. That’s why I suppose spontaneity is really the crux of the best art I’ve done. That, and I just really love the process of making things.

There are countless stories that tell of a young man, lost and uncertain, who sets out on a whirlwind adventure and figures out who he really is. It is a sad reality that amongst the great classic adventure stories, very few (if any) of the protagonists are female.

I perceive my photographic work through a director’s eyes, however, the difference in my vision, is that the whole world is a stage. It’s an intense sensation of “limitless”. I like to recreate a fantastic universe of dreams and travels.

Arriving back in Marrakech, I felt like I had truly been to outer space and back; I felt like I had seen landscapes that could not exist on our planet. I felt like I had stepped both back and out of time and had seen and briefly experienced a different way of living, of one without time and without fear.

Photography is a fiction. It’s a frame of a film which hasn’t been made, or a line from a forgotten poem. I always create in camera as much as possible, because it is also about the experience of what is in front of you at the time.

It’s surprising to see a lot of people’s living spaces of a certain age – what they surround themselves with and how they decorate their houses. They’re like living museums. It’s often an incredible level of chaos and madness that they live amongst

I use that same word when I talk about travel – luxury. It’s such a white man’s headache you know, like, it’s not hard. People say “How did you do that? That’s so hard.” And I think, “Well there are some cold days, some warm days, you know..” But it’s my own choice, and it’s a privilege entirely.

Porter Yates is a photographer, and Dan Melamid is a director. They have been friends for many years, and both share a passion for travel and visual storytelling. Through Witness.Earth they have collaborated to develop a new style of photographic presentation to music.

Thematically, (Katrin’s) work is concerned with ideas of Australian regional and remote communities in socio-economic transition in the 21st century; experientially, it is an exploration of photographer’s familiarity with her new home country.

Wild & Precious brings together treasures from a series of road trips travelled over 5 years by photographer Jesse Burke and his daughter Clover. It’s a reminder that exploration is timeless, and infinite, as should be the wild.

My driving force is to discover places and creations that I personally find intriguing. As for what I’m trying to communicate to an audience, it is a more focused critical perspective, something that I will develop over time.

While cycling about in remote South Australia Tom was bitten on the neck by a reback spider and, after suffering through the night, made it to hospital the following day to be dosed up on two bags of anti-venom. Another time, while hiking Tasmania’s magnificent Overland Track through constant rainfall, a leech found its way quietly into his mouth.

At the age of 22, Larry Niehues packed his bags and headed to Mcallen in south Texas. Following the footsteps of Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston and Dennis Hopper, he embarked on his own great American road trip.

I struggle a little bit with my attraction to old things, but I like small towns and they are usually a little behind the times. At least landscapes are timeless. I can’t be accused of nostalgia when photographing nature.

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it. Creativity is tied to anything that makes you tick. In my case it is the outdoors.

Ittoqqortoormiit is one of the most insulated towns in the world. Far away from all touristic highways and only accessible by helicopter. Two supply ships a year, and if you forget to lodge a request you must wait six more months for this.

I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them.

Maybe in some of these places there has never been human presence, I access them with my kayak or by boat. Sometimes I’m lucky, and I go alone, sometimes I go with my groups. Either way I’m very lucky, I can see other worlds within this world. I’m very lucky to experience this.

We want to make people aware about how difficult the living and working conditions in certain parts of the world can be, the fact that not everybody was born into the bright side of life but also that travelling to far away places is possible – through photographs.

The Family Acid sounds something like an adult swim cartoon, but the truth is so much more awesome. They are in fact responsible for some of the most visually intriguing and detailed documentation of the counter cultural movement of the 1970’s on, out of the U.S and beyond.

That was a life changing time with two wonderful women and their amazing father who are dear friends of mine. They are sailors but it was a first for me to be out at sea for two weeks. The best way to explore any coast on a magic carpet ride!

It was an amazing, incredible sight to see hundreds of people on this beach. The horses went in first, four or five horses into the water, then the saints were immersed, and then everybody else went in after that to take the ritual bath.

I make an effort to let everyone I photograph know what I’m up to. I want them to understand where I am coming from. I think when they meet me they realise I’m not out to expose or judge them. Who am I to expose something or someone anyway?

This series is the first time I’ve ventured into photojournalism. The opportunity fell into place; I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wasn’t prepared for the evident increase in poaching and anti-poaching activity this time around, and that was a shock. It’s a strange series to reflect on.